07-23-2008, 12:00 AM
Hi Bob,
"What it means to me is the equality of creatures. The Oglala Sioux call them families of the four-legged and the winged two-legged.
Traditional religion puts human beings above all other forms of life. The Bible seems to read this way. I cannot agree, anymore. "
Yet the Souix killed and ate the buffalo. With respect, though. I think that is the difference.
I can't abide cruelty to animals and never could even as a child. Even bugs. But I have killed, mostly fishing and a little bit of hunting.
It bothers me when I have to take a fish off a hook and he is hooked "badly".
I have all but given up hunting, but my oldest boy loves it and I have had to help him with cleaning deer etc. I had pretty much resigned myself the last few
years, (the few times that I was out hunting with him), that if a deer presented itself to me I would not take the shot.
I love archery though it is a very graceful art that requires an amount of "merging" with the arrow. Control and abandon. I have a hand made wooden
recurve that is a work of art.
Even before I read the Bible, I had a sense of hierarchy in the animal world. I think we all do.It bothers me to see a mammal in pain, human beings first, pets
next, wild animals next, less so a snake, even less a bug.
My youngest son summed up "merging" for me one day. He was about 5 years old and asked my wife, "When you look at Pete, (our dog) what do you
see?
She said, "I don't know."
He replied, "I see a person."
"What it means to me is the equality of creatures. The Oglala Sioux call them families of the four-legged and the winged two-legged.
Traditional religion puts human beings above all other forms of life. The Bible seems to read this way. I cannot agree, anymore. "
Yet the Souix killed and ate the buffalo. With respect, though. I think that is the difference.
I can't abide cruelty to animals and never could even as a child. Even bugs. But I have killed, mostly fishing and a little bit of hunting.
It bothers me when I have to take a fish off a hook and he is hooked "badly".
I have all but given up hunting, but my oldest boy loves it and I have had to help him with cleaning deer etc. I had pretty much resigned myself the last few
years, (the few times that I was out hunting with him), that if a deer presented itself to me I would not take the shot.
I love archery though it is a very graceful art that requires an amount of "merging" with the arrow. Control and abandon. I have a hand made wooden
recurve that is a work of art.
Even before I read the Bible, I had a sense of hierarchy in the animal world. I think we all do.It bothers me to see a mammal in pain, human beings first, pets
next, wild animals next, less so a snake, even less a bug.
My youngest son summed up "merging" for me one day. He was about 5 years old and asked my wife, "When you look at Pete, (our dog) what do you
see?
She said, "I don't know."
He replied, "I see a person."